Second Chances
by Number1PixarFan
Summary: AU based on "The Purgatory Theory." The children of the cul-de-sac have been reborn and given the chance to survive past their short childhoods. Over the course of nearly a century, they've all found and protected each other.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I literally got into this show yesterday. I've watched several episodes on YouTube and it ate up my entire weekend, but I am a juvenile in this fandom. So if it's not up to standards, I apologize.**

**I heard about the "everyone is dead" theory before I started watching (courtesy of a recent Cracked article), and I really let it color my experience in watching the show. Honestly, I don't know if I ever would have liked this show that much if it weren't for the theory – I found the humor and the concept a little lackluster. But don't get me wrong. I LOVE the characters, and the theory really puts an emphasis on the characters. **

**And it's fanfic fuel. Has that going for it, too.**

**So, I hope you enjoy this. Please R&R!**

* * *

_April 1990_

The universal remote was a relic from his childhood therapy sessions. "When you hold it, you'll see that you have choices," Dr. Johnson had told him. "You can choose to keep watching monster movies on Channel 3, or you can go to Channel 1 and watch Lassie, or Candid Camera on Channel 4. You can even choose to press that red button and turn the television off completely. You're not powerless, Ed. You can control your desires."

And that was forty years ago. Now, Ed not only had control over the television, but the radio, the lights, the ceiling fan, and the garage door. Granted, he rarely used the remote. And it was plastic wrapped and stored inside a locked jewelry box hidden underneath the couch, so nobody else in the house used it very much, either. As a fully-functioning member of society, Ed had long abandoned the need to reinforce his self-worth.

But on this particular day, his confidence suddenly fled. The sound of his sister approaching sent him digging through the cushions.

"Oh, Ed . . . you won't believe this." Sarah took her sweet time entering the parlor, so the door only barely whistled as it shut. "Come here!" she whispered.

"Uh . . . this can wait, can't it?" Ed replied as he tried to pry the top off the jewelry box. He was straining himself so much that his hands were turning red, but he wasn't as strong as he used to be. The wood splintered but it didn't come loose.

Sarah sighed patiently. "I suppose. But there is very little I can think of that might be more important than this. It's from _the cul-de-sac, _Ed –"

"Shush!" At the mention of their childhood home, Ed's heart rate rose dangerously, accompanied not by fear of an attack, but jumbled images of fat chickens and dripping toast. He needed that remote right now. He needed the choices. He needed to control himself.

He needed to smash the box.

He stood up, scratching the back of his neck. "Little sis, before you say whatever you're gonna say, I have to warn you about something."

"What's that, Ed?"

"Duck!" Ed threw the box at the nearest empty wall, which was nowhere near Sarah. She screamed anyway. That, along with the clunk of a wooden box landing on the floor in two pieces, provoked something that sounded awfully like a baby's frightened yell.

Sarah's face flushed immediately. "What the hell, Ed! You woke him!"

Ed shrugged as he frantically tore away the plastic. "I'll go check on the kid when I'm done with . . . Wait a minute, I can just . . . " He pointed the free remote at Kevin's room and pressed the red button. "Why won't that damn baby turn off? The remote's been dormant for too long!"

Sarah scowled. She'd fully expected this to happen, but it wasn't convenient. Her brother always lost control when they were reminded. She usually did, too, but this case was different. As much as she wanted to smack Ed upside the noggin, she had to contain her anger for the boy in her arms.

She took a deep breath and walked over to Ed, rocking her arms as she went. "It's not Kevin. It's someone new."

The remote went limp in Ed's hand as he turned his head. "Oh! A baby!" He frowned. "Gee, Sarah, why didn't you tell me you were pregnant?"

"Because I was never pregnant, dumbass. I'm too old." Which was really a shame. Sarah had always wanted a family, but no man had found her latent anger issues attractive. She gazed affectionately at the baby, calmer now due to the rocking. "I was coming home from work today when I got this almost magnetic urge to go check the cul-de-sac. I parked my car in front of our old house, and the first thing I saw when I got out was this very frazzled-looking young couple pushing this little guy in a stroller."

Ed peered into her arms. The baby boy didn't look like he'd smiled once in his short life. He was tiny and wrinkled, and he was jaundiced. He was yellow all over, like an unripe banana, and thus the only dainty things about him – the silky puffs of blond hair – were practically invisible.

"He's precious, isn't he?" Sarah cooed.

Ed shrugged.

"One look and I could tell he was completely infirm. His parents were obviously hopeless good-for-nothings, so I did what I had to do." She held the baby even closer to her chest.

"_You stole a baby!" _Ed exclaimed, doing double-takes at both his sister and the boy. "Oh my . . . Sarah, do you know what you've done?"

The baby started to wail again and Sarah flushed even redder. "I know what I did, Ed. But this ain't any ordinary baby!" She grabbed Ed by his ever-growing second chin and explained through gritted teeth, "It's Jimmy."

Ed's reaction was delayed, his attentions too focused on alerting Rolf and Johnny, or whoever was in charge now that their senility had crept in. But then he forced himself to take control of his thoughts, and it slowly dawned on him. "Jimmy. _Our _Jimmy."

The boy's sobbing waned at the sound of his name. Slowly enough, he began to smile, revealing two premature front teeth pointing away from each other at extreme angles – the early signs of an orthodontist's nightmare.

Ed had his middle-aged clarity back – not only back, but clearer than ever. It had been so long that, though he knew there was one missing piece, he couldn't have pictured Jimmy's face filling that hole. Now it was complete. Peach Creek had been reassembled. Ed felt his stupidest and his most mature both in that moment.

"You know what this means now, Sarah? If we keep him alive, we're home free!"

He started to let the remote fall to the ground, certain he wouldn't need it anymore. Sarah caught it and put it in Jimmy's arms before it shattered. "Don't get your hopes up too fast, Ed. Jimmy needs ten years."

* * *

**A****/N: I honestly don't know where I'm gonna go with this. There might be a plot, but at the same time, I kind of want to make it a series of vignettes chronicling these characters' "second lives." **

**Any opinions?**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Yay, Chapter 2! I'm already working on Chapter 3, which will be the very first flashback! Yay!**

**Ahem.**

**I take back what I said in the first chapter's author's note about finding the show lackluster. I kind of love it now. It's hilarious. And I still adore the characters.**

**Just a heads-up – some characters go by slightly different names in this story. Nothing so different that it should be confusing, just some nicknames that I think would have been developed due to their different circumstances.**

**Enjoy! Please R&R!**

* * *

"Is that – "

"Yup."

"Who's this cute little bugger?"

"Look at how his face is blanched! And such a tiny thing, too. Probably premature. Don't crowd him!"

"Do not be thick, young Ned. Sarah has brought to us a miracle!"

Of all the people gathered in the parlor, only one person had the sense to hear the advice of their most intelligent mind. Nancy trusted anything Ned professed as a strict rule. But she had noticed Jimmy's sickly pallor on her own. She would have spoken up, but she preferred to stay backed up in the corner. She had another baby to worry about, and as much as Sarah claimed to care about the boy in her arms, the bond Nancy shared with hers was much stronger.

"Mama! What's everyone doing?" shouted a squeaky-voiced three-year-old as he entered the parlor, dragging his new red tricycle behind him.

Nancy's eyes began to fill with tears, as they always did when she heard his little wheels. "They're all looking at Jimmy. Do you remember Jimmy, Kev?"

The little boy frowned. "No! Pick me up, I wanna see it!" Kevin dug his fingers into Nancy's pocket and tugged. She put her hands around his waist and lifted him, letting him wrap his arms around her shoulders.

"Oh! Jimmy is a new baby," stated Kevin with the indifference in which only a toddler could acknowledge a new addition.

"He's more than just a baby. He's a miracle."

For several moments, Kevin pondered the scene in front of him in silence. He hemmed and hawed, occasionally scratching behind his ear or resting his head on Nancy's shoulder. Eventually, something seemed to dawn on him – and it didn't make him happy. He clutched Nancy's shoulders tighter and wrapped his legs around her waist. "Do you love the new baby more?" he asked.

"More than what, Kev?"

"More than _me, _Mama."

Nancy wished she could tell him. She wanted to shout that she wasn't his mother, and that his real mother was likely being beaten to death by his real father at that very moment. But she surrendered. "I could never love any baby more than I love you, Kevin," she whispered to him, before giving him a kiss on the forehead that held more love than a toddler could possibly know.

She was trapped in her own body. It was too tall, too curvy, too _old_, and so were everyone else's. In this moment, they were all twelve at heart. But no matter what was in his heart, Jonny had the mental and lung capacity of an eighty-year-old. Rolf, who used to brag about his ability to carry a ton of inventory from the truck into the stock room in under three minutes, could now barely lift a single barrel over his shoulder. And Jimmy, bright, loving, ever-young Jimmy, was ten years away from death.

"Do you think he has colic?"

Sarah eyed Ned fiercely. "No. He's crying because that shitstain on your head is scaring him. Cover it up or _get out._"

Ned backed out of the crowd immediately. She didn't have to warn him twice. He might have gained twenty pounds of muscle since the onset of puberty, but she'd had a quick temper for forty-five years. And besides, he needed time alone to process this turn of events. He squeezed past Nancy and Kevin, went into the hall, and stepped lightly on the spiral staircase, making it creak. When he got down to the stock room, he exhaled loudly and sat down to ponder.

"What spooked ya, Ned? Did the kid mess his diaper and make you go reeling?"

Alas, there were two other people downstairs. Ned hadn't even noticed they were gone. "What gives me the pleasure, gentlemen?" he inquired with a weary sigh. "Not keen on the celebrations?"

The older of the two men perpetually scowled and never uncrossed his arms. Today, his eyebrows were furrowed deeper than usual and his arthritic knuckles were white from clutching his elbows. "I've never been 'keen on the celebrations,' kid," he said in a mocking tone. "This house is full of creeps."

"Eddy, you're a big ol' liar," mumbled the other man, who sat hunched over on the floor. "You know you'd never miss a party. It's _what _they're partying about that's the problem." He grimaced and looked at Ned with traces of puerile tears in his eyes. "We don't want to go back, Double D!"

Ned cringed. "Please don't call me that, Ed. You sound like a twelve-year-old when you do."

Ed ignored him. "Real life is so much better! I used the word 'standardize' in conversation yesterday. Would Cul-de-Sac Ed ever do that? And look at real-world jawbreakers!" He tore a strip of tape off of a box sitting on the shelf behind him and pulled out a handful of colorful candies in plastic wrappers. "Look at how petite they are! I can fit two in my mouth without my cheeks feeling sore the next day." He proceeded to demonstrate.

"Hey! You're gonna have to pay me for those," Eddy growled. He glowered over Ed and gave him a smack on the cheek. The jawbreakers popped out of his mouth and rolled away, leaving a slippery trail behind them.

As the two of them began to argue, Ned slipped past them into the shop and let the door squeak shut behind him. What an embarrassment they were – two elderly men reverting back to their youthful behaviors in a time of stress. Ned wasn't any happier about this than they were. After all, he was only fourteen, and he'd hoped he'd at least get to taste a nibble of adulthood. But if that wasn't to happen, so be it.

The shop was dealing with its age just as badly as Ed and Eddy. It rarely got more than one customer a day, and air laughed as it swooped through the empty space where people ought to have been. It was like walking through an Egyptian crypt. The cash register was open, the little sign advertising new flavors of chocolate bars was crooked, and there was a harmless fungal growth in the corner behind a shelf of licorice. And Ned left it all alone. Barring the squabbling voices in the background, everything in the shop seemed like some ancient historical relic, and he was preserving it. He leaned back against the wall and chuckled, amused, at the thought – he wouldn't live to develop a working space laser or time machine; rather, he'd make his mark on the world in the annals of history.

And in that moment, standing in the dusty remains of a once-flourishing candy shop, Ned made the biggest breakthrough of his life. A plan to chronicle the lives of the cul-de-sac children. They would be immortal on Earth.

_He _would be immortal.

"Whoa, there," said a voice suddenly from the door. "Sorry to interrupt."

Ned turned around, only a little startled. "I beg your pardon, Mr. McGee?"

Eddy's face was half turned away in apparent disgust. "Naw, naw, I was never here. You get back to your . . . petting. Or whatever the hell that was."

Ned shoved both of his hands into his pockets. Without realizing it, he'd been feeling up his scar again. "Sorry, sir," he stammered. "Perhaps I really should be covering it up . . . "

"What, with that old do-rag?" Eddy awkwardly leaned against the wall next to Ned. "Please, get as intimate as you want with the thing on your head. Just don't bring that back."

Ned coughed in agreement. For the next several silent seconds, the generation gap was palpable.

One topic, however, was relevant to them both, and Eddy knew what it was. "So Big Ed was just having a panic attack. Made his peace with it in five minutes and went back upstairs."

"And I see that you have yet to make your peace."

"Of course I haven't. 'Moving on together.' That's supposed to make me happy? Bullshit. Ed was right, that place was a trash heap."

"I wholeheartedly agree, Eddy," said Ned, his chest sticking out just a little bit more than it had been moments ago. "Ten meager years in this world rewarded with nothing but the cul-de-sac – that would be cruel." He paused. "But I don't think we're going back there. I think we're going to Heaven."

Ned smiled and moments later, he was halfway up the spiral staircase, ready to celebrate without passing judgement on Jimmy's physical state. Eddy was left alone to stew in the Egyptian crypt. He didn't have the heart to admit that, more than anything, he feared being sent to Hell.

* * *

**A/N: I had some major brainstorms on this story recently, so there's a lot more on the way. Yay again!**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Yay, finally done! I worked hard on this chapter, so although it took way too long, I'm really happy with how it turned out.**

**I'm trying to keep this fic relatively historically accurate, but I made one teeny exception that I'm not completely proud of: I made up a country. Really, a micro-nation. I tried to go with the general consensus that Rolf is from Norway, but the more I thought about it, the less sense that made. I couldn't tell you that he was from Norway, or Switzerland, or Germany, or Russia, or Italy, or wherever, and keep a straight face. So I made a place up. For a little bit of geographical context I placed it in the general Baltic States region, but Arzemland is not a real place.**

**Anywho... I hope you enjoy this chapter! Please R&R!**

* * *

_August 1916_

The corner store on Apple Road was rotting at the base of its southernmost wall. A small Negro boy, seeing "Open" in the window, loudly rang the bell and ran back to the street moments later when he realized the shopkeeper was the man outside tackling the foundation.

"I got two quarters, mister," the boy said, dancing a jig as if he were about to soil himself. "What can I buy?"

The shopkeeper's long body was half-hidden behind the bricks. He lifted his head when he heard the query and struck his head hard against the inside of the wall. The whole building shook. "Nothing! This store is closed today," he shouted. "Goodbye!"

The boy approached the man and kneeled so he was at the same level as the hole. "Just somethin' small, mister?" He held out a fist and opened it to reveal his two precious coins, dull and rancid after being clutched so dearly in his hand all morning.

The shopkeeper only muttered something dismissive and incomprehensible.

Oh, of course. He couldn't see the silver treasures for himself. The boy pinched one between his fingers, careful not to drop the other, and pressed it against the strip of exposed skin under the hem of the man's pants. The man, focusing his energy on the wood and nails, only kicked his foot in response, so the boy poked at him again. This time he got no response, so he kept poking and poking until the shopkeeper could only think about trying to squash the boy's fingers under his boot.

Livid, he crawled out from the hole and stood to his full, very intimidating height. "Cease prodding at my ankle at once!" he bellowed.

The boy didn't so much as jump. He'd run into a wild sow once in the field behind his house – if he could survive that, he could survive any angry stranger. He smirked amicably (he did not yet know how to be defiant) and held out the quarters.

"Always, with the town-folk interrupting, pestering me to no end! The store is closed! Do you not see the sign, boy?"

"I do. Says open."

The shopkeeper scowled, lowering his thick eyebrows. Keeping a skeptical eye on the boy, he turned around to see that there was indeed an incorrect sign in the window. He yelled some curse word in a language the boy did not recognize and stormed inside with a slightly bowlegged gait, leaving the boy to his own devices.

He looked down and counted his coins silently. Two lovely quarters. Fifty whole cents. He smiled and buttoned them up in his pocket. He would spend them on something before he went home, but he had the rest of the day for that. Now, he had a building to excavate.

His name was Jonny, and this was his first ever trip to town. His head was bursting with questions, and he'd taken up exploring to aid in his mind's restlessness. But the acres of barren farmland around his parents' house only held so many answers. One patch of crunchy grass had no more to say than another, unless there were, say, two quarters buried under the stalks. But there were discoveries abound to be made in town. This corner store alone was bigger than his school, and only slightly smaller than his house. And soon, he would be privy to all of its secrets.

Next to the mouth of the hole in the wall, there was a pile of straight wooden boards stacked by size. Most of them were twice Jonny's size, except for a few very short ones on top. Next to that was a hammer (which made Jonny laugh – hammers made him think of funny men with big round noses) lying next to a matchbox full of nails (fresh and shiny, not rusty like the ones in the fences around Jonny's house). Jonny picked up the hammer, made a fist around it, and put his hands on his hips. With a goofy expression of mock fury, he whispered, "Doo yoo not see de sayn, boy?" in imitation of the shopkeeper's accent. Maybe, he thought as he swung the hammer around like a gavel, he could be a big tough man like him.

Those dreams were smashed when the hammer plopped out of his hand and almost hit his foot.

The shopkeeper came back outside to his nails bent and missing their matchbox, his hammer half-buried in crumbly dirt, his stack of fresh wooden boards toppled backwards, and Jonny sitting cross-legged inside the hole. He screeched, "Were you raised by wolves, boy? You have been asked twice to leave and still –"

Jonny shushed loudly before he could finish. "He's taking his nap!"

"What _he_?" The shopkeeper glared.

"The baby, you silly duck!" Jonny laughed and swung his arms without rhythm. They held no baby, but the shortest of the shopkeeper's wooden boards. "I can't believe people would just leave babies lying around! Lucky I found him, huh, mister?"

The shopkeeper glared at him harder.

"I'm gonna call him Plank."

The shopkeeper growled a vulgarity from his first language and dusted off his shirt, preparing to return inside in hopes that ignoring it would make it go away. But what Jonny said next made him halt.

"Hot-diggity-dog, he's already talkin'! What's that you want? You want to know where that man comes from? I'll ask 'im. Hey, mister, where do you come from?"

The question made the shopkeeper's hair stand on end. "And what does that matter to you?"

Jonny looked down at his shoes. "Erm, I noticed you were dark, like me, but Plank –" He lifted the block of wood before him as if he were putting on a mask. " – he didn't think you looked Negro. He says you must be an immigrant."

"Now, you listen clearly." The shopkeeper's footsteps were terse, but Jonny could feel the earth below him tremble as they grew nearer. "I am an American. Who else but an American could have raised this store from near nothingness?"

Jonny was silent for a moment, perhaps realizing that he had finally crossed a line. Then meekly, he said, "Plank's never heard an accent like that on an American before."

Something manic flashed in the man's eyes. "Give me that," he growled. He dove into the hole and made a grab for the wood.

Jonny scrambled backwards. He held the board so tightly in his arms that he even surprised himself."No!"

"Now, now, I'll only beat you with it if you don't go home!" The foundation was shaking quite dangerously, but the shopkeeper was too far gone to notice.

"Plank's not 'it!' He's 'he!'"

"Then let me at _him_! Plank . . . has a building to raise." The moment the shopkeeper said the word "Plank," his incensed energy dissipated, replaced by an air of realization. He settled onto his knees, and in his trance, he allowed Jonny to speak.

"He didn't mean anythin' by it, mister," he said, cradling the block of wood in the crook of his elbow. "Just, he ain't ever met an immigrant before." He paused. "I ain't ever met one, neither."

"Latvia."

Jonny tilted his head. "What's that?"

"He asked where I come from. Here is his answer. Latvia."

Jonny broke out into a toothy sideways grin. "Wow! Did you know there was a country called Latvia, Plank?" He turned to the block of wood and there was, of course, no response, but as life was a game for Jonny, he laughed. "Plank says he's sorry for makin' you angry. Gee, Plank, you're an awful nice fella, aren't you?" What he said was directed at the shopkeeper more than anyone, but when Jonny looked up, the man had left.

He returned in only a minute with a small box in his hands. He walked to the hole in the wall with much gentler steps than before and knelt down so Jonny could see the words written across the top of the box. Jonny stuck his tongue out as he tried to interpret – he had only barely begun learning to read. He mused, "Bye-nee . . . ," skipped the fanciful script coil in the middle, and finished, " . . . Smit?"

"_Binney _& _Smith, _boy," the shopkeeper corrected him. He cleared his throat. "Your friend has many swell things to say. It is a shame he is so quiet only you can hear him. Perhaps, if he had a mouth . . . " He opened the box. Inside was a row of crisp colored wax crayons. "Only fifty cents."

Jonny gaped at the box, at the crayons, at the shopkeeper's face. _People are funny_, he observed. He couldn't think of a thing that could make him swing from mean to kind as quickly as this man had. If there was a concrete explanation, he wouldn't understand it for many years. It confused him.

He handed over the quarters, which the shopkeeper, lacking pockets, slipped into his boot. He watched as Jonny picked out a red crayon and began to draw a smile and two lopsided eyes – exactly as the shopkeeper had imagined Plank's face might look.

There was something oddly similar about the man's smile and the curved line across the anterior of the wooden board; though as genuine as could be, both betrayed the fact that they were aware of something that Jonny wasn't. Jonny wondered briefly if he'd finally explored himself into some evil, magical store he could never escape from. That would be a neat adventure. Maybe he could pretend something like that later.

"Thanks lots for the crayons!" he said as the shopkeeper ducked out of the hole.

The shopkeeper dusted himself off and started recollecting the nails strewn all over the ground. "Pleasure to do business with you. Now," he said, "you must go home." He stood and started looking for the matchbox.

Jonny obliged, dragging himself out of the hole using only the soles of his feet. With Plank and his crayons tucked under his arms, he hopped on one foot until he got to the sidewalk and started the way home hopping on the other foot. Before he was out of earshot, however, he looked back at the store and shouted, "My name's Jonny! What's yours, mister?"

The shopkeeper responded almost automatically. "Me?" he shouted. "You may call me Rolf!"

* * *

Jonny took every opportunity he could get, every two weeks or so, to slip away from his folks and go into town. He and Plank would poke their heads into the corner store (now repaired and open), and Rolf would shoo them away because they had no money. "No free meals, Jonny!" he would say.

It was worth it just to hear his own name.

They were not always penniless, though. "Plank's got sharp eyes," Jonny said, but it was Jonny himself who had the motivation. Pennies, quarters, and even the occasional banknote were all he needed for some human companionship. When he rang the bell, Rolf would flash him his usual stern expression, but when Jonny held up his findings, he would gladly wave him inside. Jonny would wait in line for five minutes – practically hugging whoever was lucky enough to stand in front of him – and finally, stretch his hand over the counter.

There was no avoiding the slightest bit of friction between their fingers as they made their transactions, but Jonny could tell Rolf tried to make their contact brief. He was a foreigner, and people's comfort around him teetered on the edge as it was. The only people Americans trusted less than immigrants were Negroes. Jonny didn't believe that sharing one silly handshake could bankrupt a store, but he learned to accept Rolf's paranoia. The store was his only livelihood.

Jonny always bought licorice. It was a treacly, gummy black rope imported from Rolf's country (which, as Jonny learned, was not actually Latvia but a sovereign island nation off Latvia's coast called Arzemland), and Jonny hated it. But it was the only candy in the store, and he always asked for candy.

"Plank loves licorice," he said once, before sticking it over that thin, omnipresent smile.

Rolf let out a disgruntled sigh. "That makes exactly one of us."

That made Jonny laugh. He lifted Plank above his head and pretended that Plank was laughing along with his mouth full. Rolf smirked in spite of himself, but then he looked up and saw the room full of white people glaring at him, he forced a frown and waved the little boy away.

Over time, Jonny began shying away from the other customers, as well. His increasingly frequent interactions with the other customers were making him more and more self-conscious, and he realized this with some distress. At home, he'd stopped exploring. He only sat alone in his room, or in the kitchen, and faked talking to his only real friend. Plank smiled a lot, but Jonny had to admit that he had absolutely nothing to say that helped him regain his youthful energy.

But it turned out that all he needed was to wake up. On the first of May in 1917, he ducked out of bed early and ran to the mass of fancy houses on a nearby hill. His Ma called it a WASP neighborhood. It sounded magical, and maybe a little evil, and that was exactly what he wanted his next exploration to be.

Little did he know that it would also be his final exploration.

* * *

_May 1917_

Jonny rang the bell feverishly. He didn't wait for Rolf's approval, and he wouldn't have gotten it anyway because he had no money. Plank wasn't with him. The only thing in Jonny's hands was a spindly mess of ash.

He bypassed the line and dashed straight to the counter, shoving past the young flapper with whom Rolf had been chatting. She doubled over and flashed Rolf a dirty look as she grabbed her purchase and walked out, muttering something about "greaseballs."

"Jonny! What do you think you're doing?" Rolf whispered, leaning over so he was as close to Jonny's height as he could get. There was smoke coming out of his ears, but Jonny couldn't see it through his tears.

"She killed 'im!_" _he wailed. "She stole 'im and kissed 'im and LOOK WHAT HAPPENED!"He shoved the lifeless stick at Rolf.

Every person standing in line was beginning to talk. Some fawned over the crying child, but most were grumbling and shooting poisonous looks at the man in charge. But Rolf had forgotten about being angry. There was a look of horror in his eyes that Jonny had never seen before. Gingerly, he lifted the black twig off the table and cursed in his old language.

Mucus dribbled over Jonny's lip in a constant stream as he blubbered, "Oh, Plank! Oh, Plank!"

To the shock of everyone in the room, Rolf suddenly grabbed hold of the boy's wrist. He carried Plank's remains in his other hand. "May I have a moment of privacy, please!" he said, ushering Jonny into the back room quickly before the customers started a riot.

He sat Jonny down on top of a barrel of peaches and slammed the door behind them. It was an unlit, choking room filled with the scent of melted licorice and the buzz of fruit flies. Jonny, who was as of late developing nasty claustrophobia, began scratching at his arms, his untrimmed fingernails tearing his sleeves with every weep he let out. Rolf yanked his hands away before he managed to draw blood.

"By leaving those good people to wait I am shaming my store, so you must tell me quick what happened," he said in a hushed voice.

It was so dark that Jonny could hardly see the man's face, and he was crying so hard he couldn't hear – he wouldn't have known Rolf was even there if not for the harsh slap across the face and the twinge that indicated he'd used the hand holding Plank.

Rolf, hearing silence, grunted victoriously. "Tell me what happened," he said, this time more gently.

Jonny sniffled. His eyes were adjusting to the dark. "I... I went to explore the village with – with all the WASPS and all the chill'uns playin' in the streets there laughed and pointed until this one . . . she . . . " He trailed off into chattering teeth.

"She. Who is she?"

"Jus' – just a big white girl," Jonny stammered. He had no better words to describe her in all of her homeliness. She was tiny and she towered over every larger child. She had blonde hair preened to perfection and every kink and tangle was seeable. She had tall white walls where her teeth should've been, ones which Jonny didn't think she'd ever be able to close her lips over, and she closed her lips just fine.

"And she took a match to –"

"No, no, she di'int. She jus' _kissed _him, right here." Jonny reached out and poked the space right between Rolf's eyes. "And then she threw him back at me and just _ran away_. I started running home, too, but I barely got down the hill 'fore Plank caught right up in flame!"

Tears threatened to pour again, but this time, he kept them down. He looked up to see Rolf's reaction. It was one of disbelief. Rolf held what used to be Plank an arm's length away, and as he stared at it, he brought his other hand to his right cheek, to something Jonny had noticed before but had never really thought about. Rolf had a mark just above the corner of his mouth, an abstract splotch of skin that was even darker than the rest of him. It attracted Jonny's eye for a split second – he wondered if it was a birthmark or, perhaps, a scar – but as soon as Rolf moved his hand away, his focus skipped as well.

"So Plank was . . . burned by a woman, was he?" Rolf chuckled awkwardly. "It happens to the best of men. Unfortunately Plank might never heal; but you, Jonny, will." He placed a sympathetic hand on Jonny's shoulder – a gesture no one had ever made to Jonny before.

"D'you really think I will?"

"Yes, of course. After all, he was not your only friend." Rolf patted Jonny's shoulder and held out his other hand. "Go. Say your goodbyes. I must return to my store, but if you would come back at 4:00 when I close, I have a story to tell you that might help."

When Jonny held out his hands, Rolf let the ashen stick slide into the boy's palms. He stood and went to the door, letting fresh outside air and light flow into the closet, and nodded. Shakily, Jonny himself stood and walked past the throngs of scowling customers and to the front door. He looked to Rolf one last time. The man smiled and nodded quickly before rushing to serve the crowd.

The bell above the door rang above Jonny's head. _Perfect for a funeral_, Jonny thought, if not for the fact that the jingle sounded cheerier than it ever had before.

He wasn't quite as upset anymore. He was still in mourning – he knew that much as he stared at the stick in his hands. But it wasn't over the loss of a friend. Plank had never been real. It had been fun to pretend as such, but he was only an inanimate object. No, Jonny was mourning the loss of an age. For although he had some good years of childhood left, they would not be the same without exploration, without magic. He no longer believed in magic. He believed in evil. And to be curious about evil would only put him in danger, as he'd learned from Plank's fate.

But he would get over his grief. Jonny only thought up questions to ask and things to investigate to distract him from his loneliness, and now he finally – _finally _– had a real friend.

* * *

**A/N: This is the first thing I've ever written with Rolf where he keeps his shirt on the entire time. I'm sure I will come up with an excuse for that to happen later. ;)**

**The next chapter will be split between Sarah and Nancy/Nazz, the two "mothers."**

**Reviews are highly appreciated! **


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